Trelawny
In the short story The Case of the Amateur Yachtsmen, Trelawny was one of two "amateur yachtsmen" who formed the main subject of the plot. A city gentleman like his partner Pennington, they jointly owned and operated the Scamperer, a Dutch barge which had been converted into a yacht. After the robbery of a consigment of gold in France, Interpol requested that the Air Police stay on the look out for attempts to smuggle the loot into England. While patrolling the Channel in his Auster, Ginger spotted the Scamperer make a rendezvous with a fast motor cruiser coming from France. Feeling that this was suspicious, Ginger decided to follow the yacht. Trelawny had at the same time spotted Ginger's aircraft circling nearby and thought it better not to sail directly into harbour with the stolen gold on board. He steered for a headland known as Bull Head where he hid the gold in lobster pots and lowered them into the sea. Thereafter, he made for the Cornish fishing village of Poltruan where his precaution allowed him to evade a customs and coast guard search which had been a result of a tip off by Ginger. Since the authorities found nothing, Trelawny decided to resort to bluster and demanded an apology and received one. Biggles was annoyed with this and determined not to let the case rest. Proceeding to Poltruan with Ginger and Bertie, Biggles hired a boat, the Puffin, and made for Bull Head. There they found the gold in the lobster pots and hid them in one of the many caves in the headland. While inside the cave, they heard voices and suspected that Trelawny might have landed on the other side of the headland and walked through one of the connecting passages between the caves from one side to the other. Trelawny, being a local Cornishman, would have known the area well and might have heard about just such a geographical feature. In the meantime, the Scamperer was coming round the other side of the headland with two other people on board. Knowing they were trapped, Biggles sent Ginger up the cliffs to summon police help while he and Bertie stalled for time. Trelawny and and another man appeared in the cave and demanded what they were doing there, clearly irritated that they couldn't get on with the business of recovering the gold because of the presence of Biggles and Bertie. Soon their irritation turned to panic when they discovered that the lobster pots were empty. Holding Biggles at gunpoint, Trelawny angrily accused him of poaching their gold. Biggles suggested that someone might have moved it and hidden it in one of the caves. At this, Trelawny, Pennington and the two other gang members anxiously climbed into the caves on a frantic search, leaving their prisoners unguarded. Biggles and Bertie took advantage of this and cast off in the Puffin, taking the Scamperer in tow as well, and leaving the gang members stranded in the caves, caught by the rising tide. There, they proved an easy capture for the coast guard and police who arrived shortly thereafter, having been summoned by Ginger. Trelawny claimed in his defence that he and Pennington had been blackmailed into shipping the gold for the gang. However this did not prevent him fetching a long prison sentence together with Pennington and the other two men with them, who were members of the gang which had robbed the gold. The yacht Scamperer, having been used for illegal purposes, was confiscated. Category:People Category:Biggles characters Category:Air Police era characters